The Boxing Weekend: ESPN 2’s Friday Night Fights
By Geno McGahee
Friday
ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights
Citizens Business Bank Arena, Ontario, California
The only televised boxing this weekend will feature a light welterweight collision between Demetrius Hopkins, 29-1-1, 11 KO’s, and Mike Arnaoutis, 22-5-2, 10 KO’s, in a 12 round contest.
Hopkins is coming off a victory over crowd favorite, Jesse Feliciano, winning a wide decision. He lost a bid for the WBO light welterweight title by split decision to Kendall Holt, but hopes the move up will bring him success and a world title.
Facing Hopkins is Arnaoutis, a loser in three of his last four fights going into this encounter. He was starched in 2 rounds by Victor Ortiz, and lost decisions to Tim Coleman and Delvin Rodriguez. His only recent win was over Doel Carrasquillo, a fighter that brought in a record of 12 wins and 11 losses, and had lost four fights in a row coming in. Hopkins should breeze by with a wide decision win in a fight that probably won’t bring many fireworks for the fans.
Sweetening the pot for FNF, is Francisco Contreras, 14-0, 13 KO’s. Contreras, a light welterweight power puncher has been making short work of his opposition. Out of his 13 stoppages, nine of them were in the first round, but we can’t get too excited because of the level of opposition. The collective record of his 14 opponents is 130 wins, 169 losses, and 14 draws. He’s been taking it very easy thus far.
Across the ring from Contreras this Friday is Noe Bolanos, 20-5-1, 12 KO’s, and the interesting thing about Bolanos is that all of his five losses have been by decision…that’s the good news here. The bad news is that he his record in his last eight fights is 1 win, 5 losses, 1 draw, and 1 no contest. Bolanos has been in the ring with real contenders and is by far, the best fighter that Contreras has ever faced. This fight may be a case of a fraud exposed or a power-puncher picking up his best win to date. It should be interesting.